FAMILIES will have to celebrate Halloween with smaller pumpkins than usual this year — following a harrowing harvest.
And shoppers may find choice is limited, as this summer’s drought slashed crop numbers from around 15 million to as few as ten million.
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Those who have a scream carving jack-o’-lanterns will be spooked to learn the seasonal squash is up to 30 per cent smaller this year.
Pumpkins are seeded mid-May and need plenty of water if there is to be a good harvest in time for the October festivities.
Barfoot Farms, which typically produces a million pumpkins along with its partner growers in Hampshire and West Sussex, is among those to have struggled this year.
Neil Cairns, its head of crop production, said: “They are smaller than we would have liked.”
“30 per cent smaller is probably not far away.
“It is down to the drought in summer.”
“The plants could be using ten millimetres of water a day, so even irrigating it is hard to keep up with that.
“They are smaller than before but we think we might have enough to meet orders.”
